Steyn in for Rush Today!

by Mark SteynThe Rush Limbaugh ShowApril 27, 2020

https://www.steynonline.com/10256/steyn-in-for-rush-today

UPDATE! Thanks to everyone who tuned in. You can find a few moments from the show here.

Today I'll be back behind the Golden EIB Microphone for three hours of substitute-host-level Excellence In Broadcasting on America's Number One radio show starting at 12 noon Eastern/9am Pacific. I hope you'll dial us up either via the iHeart Radio app or on one of over 600 stations across the fruited plain, such as our old friends at WNTK New Hampshire, where you can listen to the full show from anywhere on the planetright here.

The Coronapocalypse and its attendant Lockdown Without End seem likely to predominate, but we'll try to get to a few other topics, such as Kim Jong-un's whereabouts, the media silence on predatory Uncle Joe, and a possible end to the three-year torture of General Flynn. We seem set for another fast-moving news week, and we will do our best to stay on top of it.

~We had a busy weekend at SteynOnline, starting with the latest edition of The Mark Steyn Show, with Andrew Cuomo feeling your pain, Brit Wanker Coppers, some Shakespeare for the season, and lots more. You can listen to the full show here. On Saturday we marked the tenth anniversary of a Steyn in-depth big-picture special, while, on a lighter note, Kathy Shaidle's weekend movie date was the obligatory mid-season clip show. For our Sunday song selection I made minimal effort and opted for the current Number One hit record. If you were too busy being tased for buying a non-essential houseplant this weekend, I hope you'll want to catch up with one or three of the foregoing as a new week begins.

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61 Member Comments

Brian from Minneapolis • Apr 27, 2020 at 23:38

Just what measures are the "essential" people taking in order not only to get the virus but not to spread them? It clearly isn't staying in place. Why do they get to travel around and have a life and we can't? Why does Cuomo get to speak without a mask and we all need one? This shutdown would've ended weeks ago if we got the same treatment as the elites and the experts but apparently, American lives are only essential when we fall in line.

Sing to Ten 'Lil Indians and next week we can learn from 11 to 20. We want to keep you from getting squirrelly, Steven. By the time we get released for a week next fall and you can sing up to 100 while gathering nuts for next winter's second wave shut down.
Merci Beau-coop!

Fran Lavery Â Fran Lavery Â • Apr 29, 2020 at 10:24

Oops, forgot the neuf! Just to see if you were paying attention:)

Walt Trimmer • Apr 27, 2020 at 21:36

I heard today that among the non-essential, elective surgeries 85% of organ transplants are not happening. Here are some statistics in the U.S.:

112,000 people are on a transplant waiting list,

There are 40,000 transplants each year,

85% would mean 93 people per day will not get transplants. Once the opportunity is lost, it is gone forever, that means 93 people a day are doomed to death.

As it was before the "shutdown" to save lives, 20 people died each day waiting for a transplant, so you can't make up in the future for lost organs now. Thank you Center for Disease Control.

Fran Lavery Â Walt Trimmer • Apr 27, 2020 at 23:22

What was the expression? The road to hell being paved with good intentions? We can change that to, "...paved without thinking things through."

Kate Smyth Walt Trimmer • Apr 28, 2020 at 08:04

It's not only avoidance based on concern about hospital-acquired-Covid; PPE preservation has been a major "behind the scenes" reason for suspension of surgery. (Similarly, the deficiency of masks for general "street use" isn't widely discussed.)

The public opinion policy of indefinitely "quarantining" the elderly and those with risk factors - as opposed to temporarily isolating those with confirmed or suspected infection - hasn't helped either.

A better idea might have been widespread testing from the outset.

Santa Cruzin Fran Lavery Â • Apr 28, 2020 at 12:01

There is one law the big government types have never understood...the law of unintended consequences.

Segnes Schonken Walt Trimmer • Apr 29, 2020 at 01:18

Great post, W.

Segnes Schonken Fran Lavery Â • Apr 29, 2020 at 01:30

Well put, F.: that is exactly what is going on here. The road to this particular hell is certainly not paved with good intentions, but rather with an admixture of impoverished forethought and political backside-covering whose costs will not be borne by the politicians making such good progress in paving the way there.

They'll be borne principally by idiots like us who have savings and had hoped to enjoy retirement without becoming as charge upon the state. In particular, may Mrs Pelosi finally swallow her dentures and choke on them. Her sanctimony has been particularly odious just lately.

Segnes Schonken Kate Smyth • Apr 29, 2020 at 01:41

Might have, indeed, K. - but didn't. I have a question, though: testing is neither treatment not prophylaxis. I'm not really understanding why folk who know better than me place so much faith in it, which frustrates me because I consequently have no notion as to how universal or otherwise of what sample the testing would need to be to be effective, and how often it would have to be repeated. Could you shed some light?

As to counter-factual "might have beens", I have a prophylactic one in mind: it might have helped if the People's Republic of China had been subject to the sort of travel and trading restrictions in which the People's Republic of Korea rejoices. But it wasn't, and so it didn't. Pity, that.

Fran Lavery Â Segnes Schonken • Apr 29, 2020 at 09:28

Yes, S., if not her dentures maybe the fake snake skin crawling over her phony face and neck! (I'm so bad).Oh heck, the dentures, too! Not that I'm not prayerful about her every night and turn my rosary beads into a, oh, never mind. (Evil laugh here)

Segnes Schonken Fran Lavery Â • Apr 29, 2020 at 12:33

:D

Patrick Pierse • Apr 27, 2020 at 20:14

Hi Mark, just wondering if you could put together a piece on how to Boycott China, remembering that Lord Boycott was an Irish landlord who was not too kind to his tenants and so they refused to have dealings with him thereafter giving rise to the term boycott.

Robert Patrick Pierse • Apr 27, 2020 at 21:24

Shouldn't you be spelling your name Patrick "Pearse"?

Meanwhile, though, a boycott would be useless without an immediate end to ALL immigration from China.

Kate Smyth Patrick Pierse • Apr 27, 2020 at 23:27

An even broader "brainstorming" question asked by Gordon G Chang on Twitter:

"This morning a friend asked me a question: What is at this moment the biggest vulnerability of #China's Communist Party? And then he asked this: How do we exploit that vulnerability? I would love your thoughts. Many thanks in advance."

To modify Kanye West on Candace Owens: "I love the way Gordon Chang's friend thinks."

Janet Long • Apr 27, 2020 at 17:48

Always enjoy the sinister substitute host for Rush...after touching on Biden and your perfect description of him as a sexual predator with dementia I couldn't help but think about the interview I saw last night between Steve Hilton and Jared Kushner and the startling contrast of the vision and common sense that Mr. Kushner and his father-in-law provide and the absolute zero of Uncle Joe. The thought of him as the president almost makes me crazy!

Walt Trimmer Janet Long • Apr 27, 2020 at 19:47

Biden's sexual predation was in 1993, 2 years later Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon was nearly expelled from the Senate for similar charges, but instead resigned. I wonder how Old Sleepy Joe would have voted on that?

King K • Apr 27, 2020 at 17:12

Mark - I happened to catch a little of your appearance for Rush today. You mentioned a report from Tyson Foods that the US food supply chain is soon going to be disrupted â€“ a totally predictable consequence of the shutdown.

People seem to have lost sight of all long-standing core principles, the first one being that we cannot allow society to shutdown. It should never be on the table as a policy option. There is one core principle, though, that will come back to people's minds pretty quickly. We need food to survive. Unless you grow all of your own, that food comes from society. Starvation, unlike corona virus, has a non-controversial mortality rate. I'd estimate it at 100%. What will happen when the economic forces unleashed by the shutdown cause the agricultural, food processing, transportation, and food retail businesses to have to greatly cut back their operations? Can't happen? Are you sure? As I was writing this I saw another report about 12 meat-packing plants in the US shutting down. Raise your hand if you think government programs will solve the problem. They haven't solved any of the problems yet. There is, in fact only one solution. It's very simple. Re-open the economy. More important, never again shut it down.

Kate Smyth King K • Apr 27, 2020 at 23:11

The meat factories continued to operate on an "essential" basis and closed only due to uncontrolled Covid outbreaks, with workers off sick and in hospital (or in quarantine after positive tests); 13 have died nationwide. The "super spread" transmission in this environment appears to relate to close physical proximity for long periods (with no masks); some of these issues are already being addressed.

The workforce implications of "letting it rip" - be it the meat industry, healthcare or armed forces - can be very significant if large numbers of personnel are affected at the same time (as seen with a multiplicative infection process): it's the disease that shuts down the service.

Todd Lewis • Apr 27, 2020 at 16:13

As always, I love Mark's passion on Rush. I think the show today was entirely indicative of what totally consumes me. I can't get past it. Everything in the news today seems basically to be about totalitarianism. COVID-19 is merely a circumstance. There could be any number of such circumstances that would reveal the same cultural crisis.

It's been roughly 102 years and 6 months since the October Revolution. How can any sentient being not know full well what totalitarianism is at this juncture in history? In addition, you have those who assert the most monumental display of ignorance and idiocy imaginable who claim and believe totalitarianism just hasn't been entrusted to the right set of people yet. How do you penetrate such stupidity? What is this fatal lure of totalitarianism about? What does all of this really mean?

My point is that we seem to have an astonishing number of people who are, against all evidence, oblivious to the meaning and consequences of totalitarianism. They are all in for it either actively or passively. They unthinkingly assume it is a means of security and problem solving even though the historical evidence to the contrary is overwhelming and unmistakable. The lure and deception of totalitarianism therefore cannot be rational. If this were merely a matter of objective rationality people would recognize it in a heartbeat and demand it's incipient practices be abandoned immediately, but they don't. If this is not a problem of rationality then we are talking about something else. We are talking about evil and it's frightening pervasiveness and deceptiveness in the human soul and condition. Even your sweet old granny may be a totalitarian if she thinks, among many possibilities, that her granddaughter should, by all means, have an abortion to eliminate an inconvenience. Maybe it's the nice bleeding-heart neighbor who fatuously wishes to enhance the welfare state blindly condemning people's souls to destruction followed by their families and communities. How many virtue signaling political idolaters are there? The examples are endless. We are inundated with mindless totalitarian impulses that will all destroy ourselves and our neighbors in time. The experts all claim to be rational. Are they really? We are in a death grip of spiritual/cultural depravity that we are going to have to come to grips with quickly or the future may be more dark and terrible than we can contemplate. This is Tolkien's daily orcish drumbeat; "doom, doom, doom." Enjoy your house arrest.

Fred Graul • Apr 27, 2020 at 16:03

Do your part to support slaverylook for the
"MADE IN CHINA"label.

Kate Smyth Fred Graul • Apr 28, 2020 at 08:23

It's a good time for public figures to be more vocal about the CCP's appalling human rights abuses - including their mitigation strategy of *terminally* locking down citizens in their apartments in Wuhan.

Robert Bridges • Apr 27, 2020 at 15:05

The "essential worker"? In the final analysis, it's every worker. At the beginning of this emergency, there were the "first responders" but much like taking a beachhead, once secured, the full army is needed. A nation at work empowered the Army which empowered those that hit the Normandy beaches. Locking down America doesn't win this war against Red China and its surrogate Wuhan Weapon.

Al Man from CA • Apr 27, 2020 at 14:52

Hi MarkI am sure a huge amount of my fellow citizens share your anger with this stupid Chinese Virus reality.I hope we can begin to rectify the idiotic decisions to outsource our medicines and even military equipment components in what is left of my lifetime. This is so infuriating that one could become a victim of a stroke by dwelling on the morons in our government bureaucracy.Great show today!Al Man from CA

Walt Trimmer Al Man from CA • Apr 27, 2020 at 15:13

I am pretty pessimistic about curing our dependence on China. It won't be long before the pro-Chinese business and financial forces strike back and resume their bribery of public officials. The "new American" domestic will be owned and staffed by Indians and the Chinese and staffed with their H1B's. If there is one thing the majority of the U.S. electorate is good at it is having a short attention span.

Walt Trimmer Walt Trimmer • Apr 27, 2020 at 16:01

"New American" domestic pharmaceutical industry will be owned by Indians and the Chinese and will be staffed with their H1B's.

Maybe I can get some foreign help with the editing that Americans just won't do.

Matthew McWilliams Al Man from CA • Apr 27, 2020 at 17:23

People (I mean The People) talk a good game about bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. But when the rubber hits the road the question that will echo from coast to coast will be; "why is this so expensive?"

If you are wondering why so many of our drugs and medical supplies come from China, and India by the way, you need look no further than the above question. I've spent most of a career in pharmaceuticals. Back in the early 90's when I started I worked at a U.S. facility, 95% staffed by Americans mind you, that actually made things. That started changing in the late 90's and within two decades it was hard to find anything that wasn't a scheduled substance or a government contract product being produced in the U.S. Many of my ex-coworkers ended up taking teaching jobs or entered government service.

The public clamored for cheap drugs. I predicted this result when those calls started. Now I simply tell people, this is what cheap drugs looks like.

I'm all in favor of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S., drugs and all. But if that is what you want expect to be paying more, a lot more.

Fran Lavery Â Walt Trimmer • Apr 27, 2020 at 23:31

Probably all of my dog meds are made in China, too. I wonder why all of a sudden my vet med costs are going up and yet my dogs are still sick and/or dying. I know the pets don't live forever but I ever since this Chinese Bat virus hit us, I've been looking at each bottle, now we're up to about seven different kinds, last month about ten, and wondering if each dog might do better without them.

I just don't trust drugs anymore, any kind.

Al Man from CA Matthew McWilliams • Apr 28, 2020 at 11:06

I agree Matthew, in my personal case, I would pay much more for my eye drops that are helping me retain my sight. And reading Fran's comments, I am sure she would also pay more to keep her pets alive and not worry about sabotage in the manufacture of pet drugs. After this debacle, I will look askance at anything of importance manufactured in part or whole in China, or any other less-than-free country. I think overall that the economy will even out and some excess costs at first will be offset by other benefits. I hope.Regards.

Josh Passell • Apr 27, 2020 at 13:32

You mean Estrogen Williams. That's what Joe Biden called Corn Pop: Estrogen Williams.If taking women's hormones improves men's immune systems, does that make Jessica Yaniv Supermanâ€”I mean Wonder Woman? I don't doubt it, but I also might take the odd jab in the gluteus if it means I can buy a bespoke shirt (blouse?) on an outing. Of course, my chest measurement will need adjusting (DD), but I'm so bored, I'd find new ways to amuse myself.

Walt Trimmer Josh Passell • Apr 27, 2020 at 14:54

The soy boys will inherit the earth.

Paul Cathey Josh Passell • Apr 27, 2020 at 15:11

My swimming has fallen off--will it help me there?

Fran Lavery • Apr 27, 2020 at 13:12

Mark, I hear very little circulating around the news (just one night by Tucker if I'm not mistaken) how Fauci somehow figured out how to send funds to the Wuhan Lab for research on this virus. After it was declared illegal to do research on this bat virus. Why is this not talked about more?

As you said in your early remarks today, if he is such an expert why haven't we heard valuable information about how this virus worked from the beginning. Why all this changing and confusion information since mid January? If he is the most knowledgeable virologist in the country why isn't the American public the most knowledgeable group of people on the planet on the topic of viruses by now. It's not as if he hasn't had an opportunity to speak to people almost daily for months. I still don't get why he said weeks before and weeks after the travel ban from China, "nothing to worry about," basically. What about his Poo pooing the drugs that appeared to be working. It's what the experts Aren't saying that has me worried.

Fran Lavery Fran Lavery • Apr 27, 2020 at 14:18

Also, if how the officials arbitrarily decided which stores and small businesses would get closed how do we know of their other public health policy decisions aren't really arbitrary? What about the distance of people? Why is it six feet? Where is it written? What about the shut ins? Never made sense to me. The craziest one of all is that Cuomo allowed Covid-18 patients into the nursing homes when they were thought to be recovered and then they infected others. When this piece came out in the Saturday Post, and then some brave journalist asked about that, his answer was, "I don't know." What is really going on now?
Why is Google sending me flashes across my screen asking me about who in my neighborhood is coughing, having you or breathing or don't know. It ties into the drones and ratting out your neighbors. Disgusting!
The influenza epidemic in 1968 killed about a million world wide and 100,000 when we had only 2,000,000 people. The economy wasn't shut down then.

Fran Lavery Fran Lavery • Apr 27, 2020 at 14:20

Correction: Two hundred million people.

Santa Cruzin Fran Lavery • Apr 27, 2020 at 19:39

Right on Fran. The good doctor had ONE JOB...and he's on record in late January telling us no big deal. Two weeks later he goes full Chicken Little based on what we now know to be hockey stick quality models.I generally don't buy into the globalist conspiracy mongering but at minimum, somebody's got some 'splaining to do. The irony is that he was probably right the first time. Sweden has managed without collapsing its economy. Various studies have confirmed the infection was likely here much earlier with many tens of thousands more infections than the official statistics currently indicate. Herd immunity anyone?

Fran Lavery Â Santa Cruzin • Apr 27, 2020 at 23:40

Right, well, we had some of our members here talk about it a few months ago, saying to "let it play out." Of course as the news was hitting the waves from China with all the confusion that resulted and obfuscation from both the CCP and WHO, it was hard to know what we had. Also, it sounded early on as if elderly were hit hard, and as I'm getting up into elderly, naturally I reacted to the suggestion with some anxiety and fear, but now I see they were in the know. Herd immunity or a vaccine were the only two options, and doesn't sound like a vaccine is coming soon. Maybe I'll be wrong again.

Robert Bridges Fran Lavery • Apr 27, 2020 at 23:45

The mayor of Anchorage, Alaska has decreed that restaurants can only have 25% occupancy when starting up. As with many businesses such a low number is not viable. The non-business business of businessing businesses is an expanded niche for the government. The historical lesson of it is easier to destroy than build should apply but now needs to be reviewed by a governmental committee I guess.

Fran Lavery Robert Bridges • Apr 28, 2020 at 01:30

That's true but on the other hand when you talk about occupancy level in a restaurant it refers to fire codes and may mean people packed like sardines when at full capacity. Owners can use a skeletal staff, in the beginning and increase hiring as patrons get comfortable going out to eat again. I've been hearing a few big name restaurant owners or famous chefs interviewed and they say they can reopen with guidelines the industry agrees upon. They were asking for industry-wide insurance so they could pay their staff and retain them, but I haven't heard if they received it.

Small family-owned restaurants can hire family until business returns. They'll resolve it, I hope. Relaxing and unwinding out with friends and family after a long week is a part of life. Many restaurants around here switched to take out so they'll switch back to dining in as soon as given a green light. Small business owners weren't given many options, were they? I'm trying to take a break now from worrying. It's wearing me down and me worrying isn't going to change anything. I'm attending my first protest this week to get the governor to open back our business. Nothing will be changed but we'll see.

Kate Smyth Santa Cruzin • Apr 28, 2020 at 07:15

By any objective measure, Fauci's epic public health failure was the "no big deal" in January (and February and into March), when others took early action to avert human and economic damage. There would be no US epidemic, and no (flawed) "epidemic curve" had action been taken at the outset:

1. Hong Kong 42. Taiwan 63. Singapore 144. USA 56,797

HK, Taiwan, Singapore all open for business, with no proposals to "quarantine" senior citizens (or others) indefinitely.

PS. Fauci would appear to have a massive conflict of interest, given his (NIH) coronavirus research, versus the coronavirus reality.

Kate Smyth Fran Lavery Â • Apr 28, 2020 at 07:22

Fran, the third option was prevention - or, at least, containment.

As Mark's friend, Stephen McIntyre, noted @ClimateAudit:

"On Feb 29, CDC noted that virus was "NOT spreading in the community". Catastrophically bad advice from US science policy community, who, to their shame, leave politicians to take the blame."

Fran Lavery Â Kate Smyth • Apr 28, 2020 at 08:29

Yes, you're right, of course, Kate, about containment; they sure blew that one and now we've paid a huge price in terms of lives and treasure lost and time, none of which anyone can get back. I thought the CDC should've been shut down a long time ago. They're heads are revered like gods, and why?

Santa Cruzin Kate Smyth • Apr 28, 2020 at 11:00

Kate you are right the official "no big deal" mantra continued on at least through February. I think your comments on the overall response have been compelling. Keep up the good work.

Al Man from CA Fran Lavery • Apr 28, 2020 at 11:12

Hi FranLast night (Monday 27 Apr) Tucker had a Dr. on that articulated much better than I how to proceed to re-open the country. A lot of common sense. Also a while back you mentioned Eva Cassidy, so I remembered her song "Fields of Gold" (acoustic guitar only version) is one of my all-time favorites ever. I went to Youtube and played it and it gave me shivers. I have her CD in the garage somewhere, she died way too young.

Fran Lavery Â Al Man from CA • Apr 28, 2020 at 11:43

I love her voice, Al, and yes, she was younger than my youngest when she died. What a tragedy! Only the good die young, as the song goes which rolls through my mind every time I see her face. If I want a good cry, I sit down and listen to that song. This is why I'll never get past cds and lps. I love holding the packaging and looking at the graphics, designs, typeface, colors and artists and just handling them is part of how I'll alway connect with musicians and artists.

Robert Fox • Apr 27, 2020 at 13:00

I want a transcript of the conversation between Mark and the reformed liberal from Oregon. Can anyone remember word for word what Mark said about the S&M psychotic nanny with the cat-and-nine-tails? That was absolutely brilliant! What a riff!

Paul Cathey Robert Fox • Apr 27, 2020 at 15:09

I remember "metal-tipped camisole" before I broke up laughing.

Walt Trimmer Robert Fox • Apr 27, 2020 at 15:17

There was something about a leather camisole, whatever that is.

Robert Fox Paul Cathey • Apr 27, 2020 at 15:37

Paul, that's precisely when I started laughing too. Something like "A psychotic nanny something something and a metal-tipped camisole coming at you with the cat-and-nine-tails."

Paul Cathey Robert Fox • Apr 27, 2020 at 15:57

Once upon a time a young man going courting was said to be "sparking." Metal-tipped camisoles may revive that term.

Lawrence Beasley • Apr 27, 2020 at 12:45

Leaving a comment here is so much easier than getting through the always-busy EIB line, and so I'm commenting here to share my thoughts on trade with China.

I've realized in the last few years that free trade requires free peoples and not just agreements between their governments. China is a totalitarian police state, and so MFN status hurts both their working class by subsidizing their tyrannical rulers *AND* our own working class by undercutting their/our wages.

I've become very wary of the "free-trade" rhetoric of the establishment GOP, paid off as it is by the Chamber of Commerce and other corporate donors -- and I've become equally wary of invocations of national security from politicians who want amnesty for ten million "undocumented" foreigners.

This pandemic really drives it home: if "energy independence" from Middle East despots is a matter of national security (and it is), so too is manufacturing independence and ESPECIALLY pharmaceutical independence from Far East despots.

Paul Cathey • Apr 27, 2020 at 12:36

Mark, the description of your deteriorating appearance, resulting from the lockdown-generated absence of your makeup team, immediately brought to mind images Howard Hughes during his final years as a recluse. The good news is that your makeup team will be able to qualify for SBA loans to beef up staff for the monumental recovery task once they're allowed back in. TIP: Have them same your clippings--you'll "clean up" at the Steyn Store.

Paul Cathey Paul Cathey • Apr 27, 2020 at 12:57

Make that "save your clippings"!

Jeff Rifken • Apr 27, 2020 at 12:31

Mark:

I'm in my mid seventies and fear my generation turned out to be the exact opposite of the "greatest generation" that preceded us. Be cause that greatest generation spoiled us with the affluence they created, we abandoned any concern about what our children were being taught or what if any societal norms we were willing to live by ourselves or insist our children would live by. In addition we paid no attention to restricting how much our government could spend or how realistic our public pension obligations would be.
So now it is not surprising that our generation is very happy with a virus response aimed at absolutely minimizing any deaths for my generation, even for those living in the edge of death nursing homes, even if it means jeopardizing significantly the futures of our children, grandchildren and sadly great great grandchildren. Sadly it is probably not even allowed to voice such a concern except out here in the media wilderness.

Paul Cathey Jeff Rifken • Apr 27, 2020 at 12:41

Well-said, Jeff.

Max Dublin Jeff Rifken • Apr 27, 2020 at 16:09

I'm part of your generation Jeff and I hear what you're saying Jeff and share your concerns with respect to the prospects of the generations that are following our own but I don't think it's right or fair to either glorify or tar any particular generation because, among other things, so much about how a generation behaves depends a great deal upon the circumstances in which they find themselves and there are good as well as bad actors in every generation. Don't forget that among the Great Generation there were huge numbers of appeasers and Nazi sympathizers, especially among the elite, and the same goes for our generation. And it was the Great Generation that raised us to be what we are, both the good actors and bad. Fear and greed a s well as altruism and magnanimity can be found in great but varying quantities in all generations along with brilliance and, alas, stupidity. In my opinion it is the elite that have always caused the greatest problems and made the biggest mistakes in the world and the grunts that have always done most of the fixing. It was true back then as much as it is true in the present moment.

Perry Pattetic Jeff Rifken • Apr 27, 2020 at 19:02

I bought a DVD docu on this topic, maybe 12 years ago. Lost it somewhere in a move.The thesis is that mothers of the post war generation were not prepared to let little Jimmy and Jenny suffer like they and their parents did. They embraced consumerism and mollycoddled the children, giving us the 1968 generation, who dropped out, and dropped back in to run things. The John Kerrys of the world.

Segnes Schonken Perry Pattetic • Apr 29, 2020 at 01:12

You have Mr Kerry's profile to a nicety, P. There's nothing more to say about him.

Except maybe "sanctimonious buffoon", but to say that and "John Kerry" in the same sentence is to commit tautology..